Monday, August 25, 2008

Chore Charts

I made a couple chore charts to share with everyone for Works for Me Wednesday. We've been using chore charts with our girls for several years, and they've changed over time to reflect their abilities.

I believe that making kids responsible for chores is important to developing responsible adults. As parents we're responsible for preparing our children for adulthood and the many responsibilities that come with it, regardless of the fact that I'd really rather just freeze them and keep them little forever.

That being said, chore charts are one tool that we use in our house. I'm sure they're not for everyone, but they work for us. Here are some examples of chores in our house:

Grooming: Brush/floss teeth, comb hair, wash face

Bedroom: Make bed and tidy bedroom

Laundry: Keep dirty clothes in hamper and sort into bins in the laundry room three times a week (on designated days).

Trash: Empty bedroom and bathroom trash cans into main trash (again on designated days). The girls aren't strong enough yet to take the trash out by themselves, but that's coming down the road girlies.

Water Plants: This is mainly a summer chore and it's a daily one. The girls are responsible for watering my porch flowers and herbs which are in pots and dry out quickly.

Pick-Up Toys/Put Away: This is their least favorite chore and they tend to drag it out waaaaaay too long.

Dust: I give each girl a very specific area to dust and it's not a very big area because they are easily distracted. For example, Thing 2 is responsible for doing the kitchen chairs because they are low enough for her to reach and she can't topple anything over while doing it. "Oopsy is her favorite word right now."

Lay-Out Clothes for the Week: Every Sunday night the girls pick out five outfits for Monday through Friday, and place them in their days-of-the-week closet organizers. This saves time on school mornings. I try to put their clothes away in sets so that the matching is already done for them.

Make Lunch for the Next Day: Obviously this is a chore for the school year.

Skill Practice: This varies depending on what we're working on. Sometimes it's flash cards, reading, tying shoes, telling time, whatever we happen to be working on. It's just something we do as part of their bedtime routine and it's 5 or 10 minutes.

Homework: If they don't have homework from school and it's Monday through Friday, I give them something to do. It's not a big deal, we just do it to keep them in practice and to avoid the whole "I don't have any homework" argument.

During 2010, we moved over to a more Flexible Chore Chart. You can read about that here.

UPDATE: I've received some comments asking for the download link for these chore charts. Tip Junkie referred to these as a download and they are, in fact, not a download because I had to upload them as jpgs to get them on blogger. My intention is for you to be able to use them though, so you can save them by using the right click on your mouse, or just drag and drop them onto your desktop. Before you do this though, click on the chore chart image you want. It will open larger and you'll be able to save it in a much better resolution. This is an important step for the best results. I hope this helps everyone. Thanks for stopping by my blog. :)http://www.controllingmychaos.com/2010/12/flexible-chore-charts.html

23 comments:

Thank you so much for entering this post in my carnival, Jill! This is very inspiring. We do lots of chores, too, but I especially like the one about getting out five school outfits. That would certainly help my eight-year-old! He seems to have a lot of trouble with that area. Great, great post and I've entered you into the contest. Hope to see you around!

Those charts look great. Thanks for sharing. Cute picture of your kids on the sidebar. My twins dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2 and my son was The Cat in the Hat for Dr. Seuss Day last year. I'll have to post a picture of them on my blog.

I totally agree with giving them "homework" when school does not. My hubby's parents used to do this, they let them pick what they wanted to study. My hubby always chose to study computer manuals. He leaned so much from them and that is what sparked his love of computers and now it makes us lots of money! Double bonus!

I LOVE the chore charts, very cute! I also make the kids show me the whole weeks worth of clothes. I've recently added in SOCKS because they try to play like they've got all their laundry done and then happily wear one pair of stinky socks all week. Till my nose gets to the bottom of it anyway!Great ideas, thanks for sharing!

From one control freak to another.....Seriously Jill, I love you LOL! Not in a creepy sorta way though of course ;) Your blog ROCKS, and is proving to be very addictive for me. You and I have similar tendencies, I totally get you. Thanks so much for sharing all these great ideas, I for one am really grateful.

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